“At leisure let us view, from day to day,
As they present themselves, the spectacles
Within doors, troops of wild beasts, birds and beasts
Of every nature, from all climes convened;
And, next to these, those mimic sights that ape
The absolute presence of reality,
Expressing, as in mirror, sea and land,
And what earth is, and what she has to show;
I do not here allude to subtlest craft,
By means refined attaining purest ends,
But imitations, fondly made in plain
Confession of man’s weakness and his loves...”
from Book VII, The Prelude by William Wordsworth

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

I feel that we occupy a
more tenuous position
in the world than we
allow ourselves to
believe, particularly
because of facts like
climate change, and yet
we often manipulate our
natural environment in
a way that looks as if we
are trying to persuade
ourselves that this is not
the case. Feeling safe and
in control is obviously a
necessary part of living
a healthy â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;normalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; life,
and so what I find most
fascinating is that the
belief that we are secure
is a necessary deception
that seems to to be
essential to our function
in the modern era. That
it is necessary is because
our position in the world

is actually a precarious
one, particularly if we
carry on consuming
in the way that we are.
Mainstream culture
does not encourage us
to debate this, save for
when natural disasters
occur in distant areas of
the globe.

day conceits: one in
which we continually
look into the future,
presuming that we will
always have a place
in it. That our rapid
advancement, our sense
of fulfilment as a species,
actually challenges
the foundations on
which our culture is
based because of its
We surround ourselves environmental effects,
with a consumerthat it might impact
orientated landscape
our position within
that constantly reminds the ecosystem, is an
us of our latest advances existential dilemma that
in technology, science,
we do not generally deal
and communication;
with. Yet global warming
advances which will
is a fact and sea levels
make our future
are rising. Our position
more comfortable
is more vulnerable than
and complete. In
we would like ourselves
this we see another
to believe. I wanted
one of our modern
to produce a body of

photographs that whilst
not tackling climate
change explicitly, would
deal with the fragile
position that we have
within our landscape
and how we try to
manipulate the natural
world around us to
convince oursleves that
this is not how our life
actually is.
- Max Colson, April 2012

57

58

All words and images by Max Colson
www.MaxColson.com
SwitchMaxColson@GoogleMail.com
With many thanks to Beatrice LeFanu Collins, Sarah LeFanu and
Chris Collins for the tremendous help and encouragement.